Steve Schwartz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Because Broadway is above all a business, rather than an art.

Okay, I got stuck on this first sentence.  On the one hand, your
implication seems to be there there is no necessary correlation between
artistic merit and financial success.  Yes, some artists make me wonder
how they possibly ever managed to have a successful career in music, but
by and large I think I have seen a relation between artistic merit and
success, assuming that other factors such as marketing have been the
same for everyone (yes, I know that's a big assumption and requires a
lot of imagination).  On the other hand, what is CM here and now, if not
a business?  It's not like we're talking about Van Gogh sitting alone
quietly in a cornfield with his canvas, palette, and oils all totalling
$20.  We have soloists and conductors earning 6-figure salaries,
accompanying or performing 80+ people orchestras, the members of which
are probably earning at least half that, and then we have studios, the
people that run them, we have sound engineers, producers, etc., and
they're all working toward a common goal.  With so much money involved
and invested, it's hard to think of them as artists above anything else.

>Because you're assuming that the judgment of critics means more than it
>does and that it lowers the risk of financial failure.  I don't understand
>why this would be true.

The overall judgment of critics means something to me, certainly.
For instance, there is a website I have come to rely on more and more
to help me decide if I want to see a movie (www.metacritic.com).  For a
given movie the site lists the reviews of at least 10 different critics,
and assigns a number to that review which tries to give a numerical value
judgement of what that critic thought.  Furthermore, the critics themselves
don't all carry the same weight, as should be the case.  So all the
numbers for a given movie are collected, appropriately weighed, and then
averaged, and that average number gives you a pretty good idea of whether
or not a movie is worth seeing, and it generally gives you a pretty good
idea of whether or not a movie is going to have a good run or not.

I know nothing about Broadway focus groups-- if you tell me they have
the value of animal entrails I'll take your word for it-- but I had been
given the impression that they had some value.  Statistical sampling has
become a cornerstone of capitalism, and seems to have been used with
some success in Hollywood, so I thought that perhaps it might have some
value in CM.  Again, on the one hand I can see how a producer or conductor
or soloist might scoff at the suggestions of a "music critic consulting
group" (the idea really does amuse me).  To entertain the notion for
even an instant is a sure sign of weakness.  But what's that saying, the
one associated with Jerry Lewis' success in Europe......."A million
Frenchmen can't be wrong?"

hector aguilar